About this story
At the abandoned altar, Aphrodite offers a new purpose for the emptiness: Helen of Troy, alive in a distant land, held there by an old desire, and yours to seek if you accept her guidance. Before the promised ship can even find you, Sidonian slavers land instead, and your last quest begins in ropes, bound for an Egyptian market, Helen still only a vision behind you.
How it opens
After a second long wandering, you reached Ithaca and found the harbour without answering fires.
Roofless houses and untended fields showed that silence had outlasted any ordinary absence.
I will enter my own hall before deciding whether plague, war, or flight emptied it.
AphroditeWisdom brought you through wars, Odysseus, but she has left you in an empty home.
AphroditeYou served every purpose except the love you refused to follow wholly.
If you offer knowledge, name its cost before you turn grief into obedience.